1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a monitoring camera terminal that images a monitoring target area and processes the resulting frame image to trace an object such as a suspicious person having suspicious behavior.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, in a place where general public gather together, such as a station, a shopping center, or a busy street, a plurality of monitoring camera terminals are used to detect a suspicious person having suspicious behavior (hereinafter, simply referred to as a suspicious person) or the like and to trace the detected suspicious person. When a plurality of monitoring camera terminals are used to trace a suspicious person, in response to the movement of the suspicious person, the monitoring camera terminal for tracing should be changed. In changing the monitoring camera terminal for tracing the suspicious person, the monitoring camera terminal taking over the tracing should identify the suspicious person. Failure of identifying the suspicious person causes tracing of a person different from the suspicious person that has been traced. Specifically, the detected suspicious person is lost from sight, which is a tracing failure.
To improve the identification accuracy of a suspicious person, a method is proposed as follows (see JP3814779). A first monitoring camera terminal tracing the suspicious person notifies the template information used to detect the suspicious person to a second monitoring camera terminal that takes over the tracing of the suspicious person. The second monitoring camera terminal identifies the suspicious person using the notified template information.
Another method is proposed as follows (see JP3999561). In addition to the template information, the characteristic information used to detect the suspicious person is also notified to the second monitoring camera terminal. The characteristic information includes, for example, information for identifying the suspicious person using image data, the shape, the color, the size or the like of the suspicious person extracted from the image, or the shapes or positions of the facial parts including eyes, a nose, and a mouth.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Granted Patent Publication No. 3814779    Patent Document 2: Japanese Granted Patent Publication No. 3999561